it.” Dauncey drew in a deep breath of realisation, and his face for a moment glowed. “Jacob,” he confided, “I don’t feel that I could ever be unhappy again. I have what I always dreamed of—Nora and the kids and freedom from anxiety. But you—where will life lead you, I wonder? I have reached the summit of my ambitions. I’m giddy with the pleasure of it. But you—it would be horrible if you, with all your money, were to miss happiness.” Jacob smiled confidently. “My dear Dick,” he said, “I am happy—not because I have twelve suits of clothes coming home from Savile Row to-day, not because of this Rolls-Royce [Pg 54]car, my little flat at the Milan Court, my cottage at Marlingden, with Harris there for gardener now, and Mrs. Harris with not a worry in the world except how to make me comfortable. I am happy not because of all these things, but because you and I together are going to test life. I have the master key to the locked chambers. I am ready for adventures.” [Pg 54] “I have about as much imagination as an owl,” Dauncey sighed. Jacob’s eyes were fixed upon the haze which hung over the city. “When I speak of adventures,” he went on, “I do not mean the adventures of romance. I mean rather the adventures of the pavement. Human beings interest me, Dick. I like to see them come and go, study their purposes, analyse their motives, help them if they deserve help, stand in their way if they seek evil. These are the day-by-day adventures possible to the man who is free from care, and who mixes without hindrance with his fellows.” “I begin to understand,” Dauncey admitted, “but I still don’t quite see by what means you are sure of coming into touch with interesting people.” Jacob knocked the ash from his cigar. “Dick,” he said, with a twinkle in his eyes, “you are a very superficial student of humanity. A story such as mine attracts the imagination of the public. Every greedy adventurer in the world believes that the person who has acquired wealth without individual [Pg 55]effort is an easy prey. I expect to derive a certain amount of amusement from those who read of my good fortune and seek to profit by it. That is why I had no objection to telling my story to the reporters, why I let them take my photograph, why I gave them all the
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